Leigh M. Johnson

Why I Chose Memphis: Dr. J

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Dr. J's Lists, Memphis, RMWMTMBM Archive, Why I Chose Memphis Comments Off on Why I Chose Memphis: Dr. J

This post is a (bit delayed) response to fellow-blogger JLotz’s Quick Memphian Call to Arms, which she posted over on her (excellent) blog Waves and Wires. JLotz recently turned down a couple of lucrative and promising job offers in D.C. and Baltimore in order to take a position here in Memphis, and she decided to…

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Democratic Political Playbook (Revised, 2010)

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Dr. J's Lists, Obama, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive 4 Comments

It shouldn’t come as any surpise that the “Red Wave” did, as predicted, wash ashore in Washington, DC after polls closed on the 2010 midterm elections last Tuesday. Although Democrats managed to hang on to 51 Senate seats, they lost their “house” (a trauma all-too-familiar to many of their constituents). Republican, Tea Party and Independent…

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The Many Faces of You, America

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues Comments Off on The Many Faces of You, America

I’ve tried to refrain from commenting here upon the complete train-wreck that is (“surprise” Senate primary winner from Delaware) Christine O’Donnell, but a self-respecting political blogger can only be reasonably expected to hold out for so long. We’re all aware of the catalog of crazy things that have somehow made their way out of Christine…

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The King, The Clown, The Colonel: Axis of Evil?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive 7 Comments

There are debates about a few really important issues that have a tendency after a while to fade into a kind of white noise for me. I generally find this to be true about debates over capital punishment, abortion, the existence or nonexistence of God, and the legalization of drugs. It’s not that I think…

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What Is Philosophy?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive 18 Comments

A strange confluence of events recently has led me to consider more seriously the question above: What is philosophy? One might think that this is a perennial question within the discipline of Philosophy, but one would be wrong. Truth is, most of us (professional philosophers) are too busy teaching/researching/thinking about our own projects, the history…

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REPOST: Picking A Fight… Like A Girl

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching, Women and Gender Issues 4 Comments

[NOTE: This is a post that was originally published on this blog a year ago (10/08/09), which I am re-posting now because of recent interest in the newly-developed and eminently revealing What Is It Like To Be A Woman In Philosophy? blog. It is interesting to me to see this issue resurface with such force…

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One World (Stand By Me)

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Music, RMWMTMBM Archive 1 Comment

This is one of the greatest things I’ve seen on the old interwebs in a long, long time. It’s a collaborative recording of “Stand By Me,” the familiar Ben E. King standard, with musicians and vocalists from all over the globe contributing. Here it is, for those of you who may still doubt that some…

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Morehouse Mean Girls

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching, Women and Gender Issues Comments Off on Morehouse Mean Girls

I’ll admit that I hesitated, more than once– more than a dozen times, to be honest– before posting this entry. So, allow me a few caveats here at the start. First, I’m not a Morehouse grad, not even a Spelman grad– two of the most prestigious HBCU’s in the country– and I can appreciate that…

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The Uncanny Valley 6: Unreal and Unreal-er, or, Why a “Fake” Fake Isn’t Uncanny

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Music, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Uncanny Valley 2 Comments

I made a brief mention in my last uncanny valley post about the difference between “real” music, by which I mean music played on actual (i.e. “real,” material or physical) musical instruments by musicians (i.e. human beings with some skill on those instruments, availing themselves of said instruments without superadded technological assistance) on the one…

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The Uncanny Valley 5: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Uncanny Valley 4 Comments

Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve written several posts about the “uncanny valley” on this blog. The theory of the uncanny valley is loosely based on Freud’s account of Das Unheimliche (the “uncanny”), a major trope of psychoanalytic theory and a favorite play-thing of literary, film and cultural theorists who borrow…

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